


Illusion Rod

by lovingdefiance



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Banter, Betrayal, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dialogue Heavy, Dream Sex, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Illusions, M/M, Neck Kissing, Nipple Play, Non-Penetrative Sex, Oral Sex, Presents, Slice of Life, Water Guns, Wet Dream, ear kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-25 05:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovingdefiance/pseuds/lovingdefiance
Summary: It was the most magical girl-esque thing Saihara had ever seen: he sat gaping at the spectacle for a long moment before clearing his throat. “Thank you very much,” he said formally, covering his lips with one hand and looking thoughtfully to the side. “Yes. I’ll take good care of this.”“You don’t know what it is,” Oma pointed out.Moved by Saihara's many tributes to him, Oma generously offers Saihara a gift in return.





	1. Illusion Rod

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **048\. Illusion Rod (1000 Casino Coins):** A miracle rod that can show a happy illusion when it's spun in circles in front of someone's eyes.

“Since you invited me this time, what did you want to do?” Saihara asked, sitting down at the table beneath the gazebo. “I didn’t find any new games for you, but-”

“Who cares?” Oma interrupted, plopping down across from him with an enormous yawn. “It’s not like I’m relying on you to give me things to do. I’m bursting with things to do over here! I almost _am_ a thing to do, if you really think about it.”

“I’m not thinking about that,” Saihara swiftly interjected.

Oma ignored him. “And that’s why today, I’ve decided to change things up and turn the tables on you!” Oma procured a long box from beneath the table, tied neatly with a ribbon, and offered it over the table to him. It had to have been prepared in advance. Oma had carried nothing to the table when they walked together to the courtyard. Saihara had seen the boxes and ribbons before, however, tucked away behind the prize counter at the casino.

“For me?” he asked in disbelief. Oma tilted his wide-eyed face to the side, the picture of innocence and charity. “But won't this be full of springy snakes that are going to shoot everywhere, or some sort of noise trap, or those terrible meat caramels you tricked Yumeno-san into eating...”

“Wow, I must be rubbing off on you, because those are all really great ideas! But there’s just one way to find out.” Oma grinned wickedly as Saihara reached for the ribbon, pulled the end with trembling fingers. “Because you’ve gotten me so many things,” he said as Saihara pulled the ribbon free, “and one-sided tribute like that is appreciated! But it won’t do much to inspire real _devotion_ from you, so I just think it’s important to give encouragement. Make you understand _why_ you owe me the life that I’ll eventually take from you. And that’s why my organization always ranks number one in the list of nefarious underworld organizations it’s best to work for!”

“Where would they even publish that?” Saihara grasped the lid, hesitated.

“In the Nefarious Underworld Organization Monthly Newsletter, obviously. NUOMN,” he said, pronouncing the awkward cluster of sounds like someone trying to eat an orange in one bite. “People like _you_ obviously wouldn’t be subscribed.”

“That’s quite a mouthful.”

“Well, yeah, if it was _catchy_ then _everyone_ would know about it. Would you open this box already? I can’t sit here forever. I got places to be!” Saihara, turning his head to look at the box from the corner of one eye only, grimaced and picked up the lid.

A long pink rod capped with a shiny red orb gleamed up at him from a bed of white silk. The golden wings right beneath the orb had been polished to a high gleam that looked almost artificial, as though the light glinting from them could make an audible _ping_! It was the most magical girl-esque thing Saihara had ever personally seen: he sat gaping at the spectacle for a long moment before clearing his throat.

“Thank you very much,” he said formally, covering his lips with one hand and looking thoughtfully to the side. “Yes. I’ll take good care of this.”

“You don’t know what it is,” Oma pointed out.

“That’s true.”

“Using this, or so Shirogane-chan boringly told me, you can finally perform Moon Princess Inhalation or something-”

“Well then,” Saihara said briskly, standing up and leaving the box on the table. “Good day, Oma-kun.”

“Hey, wait, wait! That was a lie.” Oma hopped up from the bench and yanked the wand from the box, brandishing it at Saihara like a sword. “Listen. Take it back to your room, and when you’re having trouble going to sleep, twirl the orb in front of your face.”

“Ah, good. Thank you.” He allowed Oma to push the box into his arms, dropping the wand askew back into its silk bed. “Well. I’ll take good care of it.”

“That wasn’t a lie,” Oma called after him, poorly concealing his laughter. “I promise, the _very last thing I said_ was one hundred percent true! Aren’t you going to thank me properly!?”

* * *

Saihara lay on his back in his room, staring up at the massive light that made up a third of the ceiling. It was a good light, he thought. It lit up the room very efficiently during the day, and at night it hung suspended within the ceiling above him like a huge, dark coffin lid.

Maybe, he conceded, the light was less good in the evenings. He rolled onto his left side, caught a glimpse of myriad Monokumas roiling endlessly in the near-total darkness of the shelf, and rolled over to his right side with a horrified shudder.

 _When you’re having trouble going to sleep,_ echoed Oma’s voice in his memory, _twirl it in front of your face._

Saihara imagined the orb at the end of the wand flying open in perfect halves to emit a cascade of purple craft glitter over his helpless, prostrate body. He considered the orb simply falling off the end of the wand and bonking him on the forehead. His mind’s eye summoned a perfect vision of Oma giggling at his bedazzled hair or his unsightly forehead lump over breakfast the next morning, explaining gleefully to everyone how his evil trap had been an incredible success because Saihara was, in fact, an idiot who believed wands were magic. He could even imagine the evil newsletter hailing Oma’s achievement: _Oma Kokichi retains #1 spot as cruelest user of craft glitter for 3rd consecutive year!_

It was an unwieldy headline, but Saihara was no journalist. He rationalized weakly as he sought out the box on the table that at least Yumeno would be on his side. She would probably love this thing, and if she was on his side then Chabashira would be right there with her. Logically following that train of thought, there was a nonzero chance that Chabashira would hurl Oma out the dining room door like a javelin if Yumeno looked sideways at him, and there was no way an evil newsletter would give Oma a positive write-up for that.

The wand felt surprisingly solid in his hand as he lifted it from the rumpled silk. Metal, he thought, and the ball at the end felt like real glass. He sat at the end of the bed and twirled it experimentally toward the floor, waiting for the glitter cloud or the heavy thud.

Silence. The wand twirled in circles like a normal wand, though the fact that he was twirling a magic wand over the edge of the bed even experimentally made him feel ridiculous enough. “This whole situation is implausible. This isn’t even the _most_ implausible thing. We’re finding flashlights that make us remember things,” he defended himself against no one, and brought the wand back to bed with him properly. “High school robots with the strength of a healthy old person, and giant robots that do construction work, and...robot comic relief bears." He stared up at the wand as he dangled it over his face and began to twirl. "Ultimate Supreme Leaders who give out magic staffs in exchange for vending machine items..." Slowly, as though he were in the process of falling asleep, his eyes closed.


	2. Hammock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little did you know, Illusion Rod is just my stage name. My real name is **ILLUSION BRODERICK!!!**
> 
> ...Just kidding.
> 
> Somehow, even though I wanted to write a silly doujin-esque premise, it's still only like 1/5 explicit...?
> 
>  **098\. Hammock:** Bedding created by hanging a net between two poles or trees. Lounging in one of these is something everyone has dreamed of at least once.

“That’s the Big Dipper,” Momota told him, pointing up and tracing a shape with his index finger.

“What?” Saihara sat up from the cool bed of grass beneath him, looking around. The dorms were to his right, quiet and dark, and above him the sky stretched wide and endless and glistening. “I can see the stars…” There was something strange about that, but the more he considered it, the less important it seemed. “The stars,” he said faintly.

“Uh, yeah. Obviously.” Momota quirked an eyebrow at him. “You okay, man?”

Saihara was okay. He was _more_ than okay, he realized, as though thinking through a thick layer of gauze. He was stricken by the immensity of the sky, the vault of the heavens glistening with diamonds, the sight of the star chart nestled in the grass between them. A cool night breeze ran through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “Yeah, I just…” He smiled. “Just got a little overwhelmed, I guess?”

“Haha, yeah. I know what you mean,” Momota said fondly, gazing at the sky. “I feel the same way all the time, you know?” He pointed again. His jacket lay spread out beneath him, stars and planets cascading under his body as well as far above his head. “Like it’s all out there, waiting for me. The universe.” He clenched a passionate fist. “And I’m coming, damn it! I’ll be there as fast as I can, just you wait!”

“Yeah.” Saihara lay back on the soft grass, following Momota’s gestures as he pointed out the swirls of the Milky Way band. "I know."

“That bright star there is Altair,” Momota told him. “The ones to the left and right, see…” He traced a shallow crest, a line leading down. “That’s Aquila. You see it?” Saihara had seen it before, the eagle constellation, but he nodded dreamily and gazed up at it as though for the first time. “Anyway, yeah man, I could point these out all damn night. Just tell me if you get bored.”

Saihara stared at the sky like a beached flounder and wondered if it were possible to float up and away. There was a mesmerizing quality to the beauty of space. It was as though he had been tense - _about what?_ \- and the stress was draining gently away into the grass around him like a cold sweat, leaving something lighter than air. “No,” he realized. “I’m really happy.”

“Cool!” Momota, grinning, reached over to give him a fistbump. “So, you can use the Big Dipper to find Polaris. Check the outside two stars in the Dipper and follow them up in a straight line to...that bright one there. The North Star.”

“I see it…” He followed the sure, steady motions of Momota’s hand, eyes half-closed in satisfaction.

* * *

Saihara opened his eyes peacefully for the first time since his arrival at the school, smiling at the ceiling in a daze before the world came back to him in a rush. He sat up, scratching at the back of his head, and cast about himself in confusion. It felt as though hours had passed as he lay staring at the stars. More than he had in days, he felt refreshed by having slept.

The wand lay on the pillow beside him as though he had placed it there intentionally. Its winged orb even inclined gently toward him as though he had woken it up to ask it a question. “What?” he asked. Unsurprisingly, the orb said nothing. Saihara picked up the wand and stared into the red glass. No answer was forthcoming from the tiny air bubbles trapped inside. “Um. Okay.”

A magical girl wand that put someone to sleep or created pleasant, illusory scenarios was no more implausible than memory flashlights, he had to admit. It was certainly no more stupid than robot bears that snapped guitars in half and bullied one another while doing nothing useful, but the fact that _Oma_ had given this to him was...

“Surprisingly thoughtful,” he mused, cupping his fingers thoughtfully across his mouth. A suspiciously generous move from the supreme leader of a secret evil organization. Almost as though it were some sort of trick after all, but how would that work?

He tried to imagine the craft glitter again, but it was harder to envision Oma lulling him into a false sense of security using actual magic in order to get one over on him. He couldn’t very well mock Saihara over breakfast for having been supernaturally deceived into bedazzling his face. For one thing, it would be ridiculously unnecessary, and for another there was no way Oma would give Yumeno the satisfaction of acknowledging that magic was a thing. He could, for a moment, imagine Oma receiving a nice write-up in the evil newsletter for his secret mastery of the arcane - a big cover picture of the frou-frou wand polished to a high gleam, Oma holding up two fingers and winking obnoxiously behind the orb. _Oma Kokichi claims the #1 spot for the second consecutive year for his improbable possession of mystical powers beyond science's ability to explain!_ Saihara shook his head, smiling ruefully.

Of course, there was a more logical explanation. Perhaps there was no magic and Saihara had just been due to finally have a decent dream for once in this bizarre place, but the clarity of the experience - the peaceful languor of his thoughts, the perfect setting, the feeling of the grass beneath him, Momota's casual fistbump - had been real, striking in a way that he had never felt in a regular dream. It was worth another shot, he thought, and picked up the wand again. At least for the sake of experimentation.

* * *

Saihara woke in a dark room, lying down and swaying comfortably back and forth. “Ah,” he realized, “the hammock.” A warm body lay curled against him, back pressed against his chest. The sling beneath him was loose enough that it rolled them together. Oma fit snugly against him as though he were made for the purpose. “I bought this.”

“Uh, yeah…?” Oma asked languidly, unmoving. “ _And_?”

Saihara shook his head, not sure why he had been surprised. This was Oma’s room, of course. It was dark enough that he could see no real detail, but it hardly mattered. He knew where he was. “I’m glad you like it?”

Oma. There was something strange about the idea, but it felt natural somehow to lie like that with one arm wrapped around his small frame, warm and close. His head nestled comfortably below Saihara’s chin. “Not that you had a choice since I ordered you to do it,” he said, “but because you helped set it up, I’ll generously let you live for now.”

“Thanks,” he said, a smile crossing his face. Like this, facing away and curled up safe against him, Oma felt almost harmless. A wave of fondness rolled over Saihara as he felt the back pressed against his chest rise and fall with soft, even breaths.

“I’ll let you touch me, y’know.” Oma’s hand closed around his, coaxed it down. “If you wanna.” His voice sounded casual; his motions were careless, as though it were nothing new, but from such a close range he thought he could hear a small tremor in Oma’s voice. He wanted to be touched - he wanted Saihara to touch him. It was nice, he realized, the thought of exploring and feeling Oma up in the dark without being seen. He liked that idea.

“If that’s okay.” He reached down, fingers skimming along fabric and buttons, and slid under the ragged hem of his shirt. He pushed it up enough to feel the delicate skin of Oma’s abdomen, the metal loops hanging from his belt, slid his fingers down to move between his thighs. Oma took in a soft breath and shifted to let him feel the firmness under the thin fabric of his pants.

He rolled his palm gently against the outline of Oma’s cock and buried his face in the softness of his hair. He smelled good, clean and warm, and when Oma rubbed against the undulating pressure he pushed back against Saihara’s body in a slow, delicious motion. “Ah...” Saihara squirmed, hissing through his teeth as he pressed himself up against the curve of Oma’s ass.

“Good,” Oma said quietly. His hand covered Saihara’s, pressing down harder. “Like that. C’mon, c’mon...”

“Yeah…” He thrust shallowly against Oma's body, letting Oma do the work of grinding himself against Saihara’s palm. “I could...touch you more,” he offered, squeezing a little harder at the straining outline of the dick under his hand and feeling a quick shiver against his chest, the hand holding his in place sliding away to fumble with his belt and pants. Oma let out an audible sigh of relief when it all fell away, when Saihara slipped his fingertips beneath his waistband and peeled his clothes from his hips to wrap his fingers around Oma properly. “Is that good?” He squeezed tenderly, drank in the quiet gasp of him catching his breath, slipped his other arm underneath Oma’s body to pull him closer and hold tight as he began to jerk him off in earnest.

“Just keep going,” Oma gritted out in a low voice, squirming back against him and letting Saihara work him off with steady, careful strokes. “Just - c’mon, a little harder, you’re not gonna break it.”

“Mm.” He buried his face in Oma’s hair and rutted against him steadily while listening to his breaths grow louder and harsher, feeling his body tense up and tremble. He was already close, Saihara could tell. Saihara was not, the contact between himself and Oma too indirect to get him there, but it was more than enough to hold Oma in place and draw low, breathy sounds from his mouth, feel him shiver as he was worked up closer and closer to the edge. He was so vocal, so sensitive. He must have already been excited. Saihara smiled into the soft strands of his hair at the thought, thumbed across the tip of his cock to spread a little more slickness down his length. “Almost?”

“Nnn-” Oma writhed like he was fighting uphill toward it, thrust himself into Saihara’s grip. “Yeah, yes, _there-_!” All at once he shuddered and went still in Saihara’s encircling arms, spurting helplessly into Saihara's fingers, but before he could do anything more for Oma the scene gradually faded away.

* * *

Saihara opened his eyes, sticky and trembling and alarmingly worked up, and stared at the wand on the pillow. Behind the red orb tilted to face him like an inquisitive face, the miniature Monokumas shifted restlessly in the darkness.

“ _What_ ,” he told it, not bothering to make it sound like a question.

That settled it: there was no way this was some intentional trick. Saihara would never admit it, and no one would believe it if Oma himself claimed to have the power to give people oddly pure sex dreams using a magical wand, so Oma could never possibly mock him for… _what_ , exactly? Being into it? Enjoying spending time and casually playing games with Oma enough that, given the opportunity, he might not turn down the chance to get closer?

For that matter, how would Oma even know what he had seen unless he had set it up ahead of time, some juxtaposition of relaxing, platonic stargazing with Momota followed immediately by _nishishi Saihara-chan, so you wanna feel up my body now, huh?_ It was impossible. It made no sense.

Saihara closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head to banish that mental voice, which had been unnervingly convincing. Setting something like that up in the first place would be infinitely weirder than Saihara enjoying it. Even the evil newsletter would be scandalized by the idea. It all added up to one conclusion.

“Oma-kun is innocent. In this specific instance,” he hastily amended. “So it’s…” He rolled out of bed, wandering toward the bathroom in a daze. “It’s me, then.”

He would have to do some research.

* * *

Saihara found Oma on the lower floor of the casino the next morning, perched in front of one of the slot machines. “I knew you’d come find me if you used that thing.” Oma grinned, swung his legs idly back and forth. “‘Cause I kept the paper that explains what it does, and as expected of my beloved Mister Detective, I knew you’d want to get to the bottom of things.”

“What…is it?”

“It’s the Illusion Rod! It tells you lies you’ll enjoy, so coming from me, it’s a perfect gift.” Oma beamed up at him and fed a coin into the slot machine. “I hate liars, so personally I hate it. But I knew you would like it. Know why?” The cylinders stopped, revealing two Monodams and three Monokids. “Aww, boring.”

“Why?”

“Because even though you pretend to hate lies, you loooove _happy illusions_ , Saihara-chan!” He spread his arms wide, pushing against the slot machine and twirling the stool around. “Friendship that can overcome the situation we’re in. A single truth that only hurts people as much as they can bear when you reveal it,” he cried, whirling in circles. “The idea that anyone can ever be trusted!”

Saihara stared at him. Oma stared back as best he seemed able, still twirling freely. “You’re...um, not the best at actually _explaining_ gifts, are you."

“That’s so mean!” Oma gasped, tears flooding his eyes, and dragged his shoes on the pole of the stool until it stopped rotating. “Did you like it, at least? What kind lies did it show you?” To Saihara’s horror he felt the warmth of a flush creeping across his cheeks. “Uh, _wow_ , something private?” Oma grinned, winking his fake tears away one eye after the other. “I guess if that’s what you wanna use it for! It’s got nothing to do with me.”

 _What if he knew_ , Saihara thought, followed immediately by another glance at Oma’s obnoxious winking. He was on at least his fifth wink, not that Saihara was keeping track. _Oh. Thank god he doesn’t know._

“But illusions can show real things, right? For example...you’re wandering in the desert and you see an oasis,” Saihara suggested in lieu of actually responding to Oma's question. An excellent evasion. Oma tilted his head to the side, smiling innocently.

“And even though it’s a mirage and you’re gonna die out there alone, you can at least be comforted that somewhere in the world there’s a real oasis that’s totally great, and you just aren’t gonna see it because you’ll be dead?” He had deduced the previous night that there was no way Oma could know what he was talking about, but Saihara wilted a little regardless. “Well, whatever. You’ve come to get the instructions, and here they are.” Oma produced a folded paper from his sleeve, winking again as he pressed it into Saihara’s hand. “I actually have an eyelash in my eye right now,” he clarified.

“Okay.”

“Just kidding. I’m winking at you.”

“Uh, that’s also okay.”

“Really?” Oma asked, raising his eyebrows. “Huh. Well, twirling in so many circles right then kinda made me wanna puke, so you should maybe go read that somewhere else. Though, actually, that’s a lie! I just want to keep playing.”

“Oh...” Saihara backed away, clutching the paper. “Then excuse me.”

“Bye!” Oma waved enthusiastically before turning back to the slot machine. Saihara, turning around, heard what sounded like a faint retching noise drowned out immediately by the clanging of the machine.

* * *

**_These Are Totally Instructions_ **

_SUCKER! These aren't instructions at all! It did come with an explanation, but you can’t have it because I already ate that paper for safekeeping. Orrrr, maybe I had it the whole time you were talking to me. What will you do about that, Saihara-chan? I bet you won’t do anything. I bet I spun around on a chair and pretended to throw up and you just left me there. That’s so heartless! WAAAAAH!_

_If you’re reading this it means I already won that bet. You took the decoy paper. You were already 100 years too late to defeat me, Saihara-chan!_

_P.S. The illusion rod shows you **happy illusions**. Nothing to make you sad, so just have some fun for once._

* * *

"Oh," Saihara intoned flatly. He set the paper down beside the wand on the table, taking special note of the tiny doodle of Oma at the bottom of the sheet giving him an enthusiastic wink and thumbs up, and sighed deeply. "Well then."


	3. Home Planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little did you know, Illusion Rod was a typo. Welcome back to **Illusion Prod!!!** The story of a cattle prod that causes fainting and sexual hallucinations.
> 
> ...Just kidding. This chapter is surprisingly long, but it's only like 2/5 explicit. Maybe this is more like a thinly veiled doujin-esque excuse to write relaxing slice-of-life interactions.
> 
>  **095\. Home Planet:** A mini planetarium machine that can project the cosmos onto your bedroom walls when it's time for bed. Comes with a narration by a popular voice actor.

Saihara stared at the line of three Monokubs, standing with arms crossed to block off the lower floor of the casino. “I can’t go down there? I was just trying to find-”

“I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not just that ya _can’t_ , ya don’t even _wanna_ go down there!” interrupted Monosuke. “Not for love or money, and that’s sayin’ somethin’!”

“I can’t believe Oma-kun actually threw up after all,” Monophanie piped up. “All over the slot machine. It was so gross it even makes _me_ want to - GRRBLBLBLB!” A fountain of blue vomit poured from her mouth. Saihara watched uncomfortably as the moment stretched out too long, the puddle of blue pooling around Monophanie’s feet and beginning to make its way down the stairs. “GRBLBLBL!”

“Okay,” Saihara agreed eventually when nothing more seemed forthcoming. “Uh, I’ll just try back some other time. He’s not still actually down there. Is he? Well, the handbook will-”

“Monophanie’s rare blue puke...It’s a good omen,” interrupted Monotaro, sidling away from the growing puddle. “I think. Well, come to think of it, it’s gotta be a bad omen because now _Monodam has a lot more to clean up_!” he shouted down the stairs, cupping one paw next to his mouth.

“N-O-O-O-O-O-O,” mourned a distant voice from somewhere near the slot machines.

“So, more importantly...” said Monosuke, then trailed off. “Hey, he left!” The door swung gently closed; Saihara had vanished from the lobby.

“Halfway through our comedy routine!?” Monotaro wailed. “But we don’t get enough screentime as it is! One of us already shouldn’t be here right now, and at this rate, none of us will even appear again!”

“GRBLBLBLB!”

“You’re right, Monophanie! We have to go after him!”

Saihara speedwalked from the casino as though expecting them to barrel out the door after him in a puking, shrieking whirlwind. Their routine normally went on much longer. Saihara suspected he may have dodged a bullet by slipping out during Monodam’s outburst.

“Hey! Hey, you bastard!” shouted Monosuke. The door burst open with a bang like a gunshot. “Hey, he’s ignoring us!” They barreled from the casino in a puking, shrieking whirlwind. Saihara, not looking back, broke into a polite jog.

“GRBLBLBLB!” Saihara shot a panicked look over his shoulder at the sound. Monophanie glided backward through the air, facedown, blue vomit splashing to the trail as she went; Monotaro stood astride her heaving back as though riding a hovercraft, majestically facing Saihara over her pink-and-white tail, a katana brandished in his paw. Monosuke pursued them on foot, splashing through the hideous blue soup with his abacus and grumbling audibly. Saihara broke at once into a dead run.

“Stop right there so I can dice you up!” Monotaro shrieked, piloting Monophanie in an unsteady line toward his fleeing form.

“Now I’m _definitely_ not stopping!” Saihara panted, racing for the giant door out of the area.

“Stop right there _or else_ we’ll dice you up!?” he shrieked in a more questioning tone.

“No!”

“Give us a break over here,” added Monosuke, “we’re hard up for airtime! Everyone’s gonna forget our names!”

“Yeah, I already forgot that fourth guy! The green one! Hey Monophanie, was there even a fourth guy!?”

“GRBLBLBLBLB!”

Saihara dashed through the door and took a hard left away from the casino and the school, the straightest path away from the vomiting hellstorm of horrible robots. “Oh, god. Oh god.” His feet hammered the path, his breath like fire in his lungs as he ran for the path leading to the Shrine of Judgment.

“Hey, he’s going that way! Through that opening in the wall! Puke harder, Monophanie, we’re gonna lose him!”

“Oh no oh no oh no-” Saihara chanted as he cleared the wall and continued, taking the stairs down three at a time in frantic leaps. The instant he reached the path below, a hand gripped his arm and pulled him sideways. He toppled into the shrubs by the path with an embarrassing shriek and flailed at the small hand that clamped over his mouth.

“Shhhhh,” Yumeno hissed, eyes narrowed. “With my magic...I’m casting an invisibility spell.” She began to whisper, fingers leaving his mouth to trace arcane sigils that looked suspiciously like hiragana characters in the air. Saihara quickly snatched the tall hat off her head.

“It’s sticking out of the bushes,” he explained in a rushed whisper, tucking it under a branch.

“Shhhhh! It won’t matter once we’re _invisible_ ,” she fumed. Struggling to breathe quietly, he listened to the magic words. “Pssspspspsps,” she whispered. “Teru teru bozu... _maaagic!_ Psssspspspssst.”

The bears rocketed through the opening in the wall. “Whoa! Where’d he go!?” Monosuke shouted, running in behind the others. “Did he turn around or something?”

“Where’d who go!?” Monotaro asked. “What were we doing again? Monophanie, do a barrel roll! Do a sweet loop!”

“GRBLBLBLBL!” vomited Monophanie, executing a perfect loop and returning from whence she came. Monosuke paused, took a long look around - Saihara clamped both hands over his nose and mouth, staring out from the shrubs in terror - and turned around, running after the others.

“Wait! Hey! The straight man character can’t carry a routine alone, I need some wacky bastards to play off! Wait uuuuuup…” His voice trailed off into silence. Saihara buried his face in his palms, finally panting out loud as Yumeno continued to whisper beside him.

“I can’t believe he didn’t see us,” wheezed Saihara. Yumeno scoffed, snatching up her pointed hat and perching it back atop her head.

“‘Course they couldn’t see us, don’t be stupid. I _told_ you, we were invisible because I cast a spell on us.”

“Why were you even hiding here in the first place?” Yumeno held a finger to her lips and gazed at him mysteriously through hooded eyes. Chabashira emerged from the nearby dojo, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“Where’d you go?” she shouted. "We're still in the middle of today's training!"

“I knew you’d be coming here,” Yumeno whispered sagely, “‘cause this morning, I cast a spell of precognition. And it told me...you’d need my help.”

“Oh. That’s very generous,” he whispered back. It occurred to him that, if Chabashira found him lurking with Yumeno in a secluded bush, she would almost definitely Neo-Aikido throw his hapless body straight into the depths of hell. He broke all at once into a cold sweat. “Th-thank you.”

“Mmmmm-hm.”

“Hey!” Chabashira shouted. “I see your hat!”

“Oh no,” she murmured. “Looks like my mana got depleted.” She stood up from the shrubs, dusting off her skirt. “What a pain. Well...it was time for lunch anyway.” She stepped out of the bush and walked toward Chabashira, waving a small hand. “Hey.”

“What were you doing in there?”

“I’m communing with nature,” Yumeno explained. “It helps restore my MP if I just stay reeeeally still. But...I got hungry.”

Chabashira perked up, eyes alight. “Hungry!? I know just the thing!” She clasped Yumeno’s waving hand, her expression glittering with devotion. “We’ll share hot pot together, for real this time. I’ll let you have over half the meat so you’ll restore all of your mana for sure!”

“Nyeeeeh, meat is for _HP_. You need potions to restore MP,” whined Yumeno, allowing herself to be pulled along down the path. “Or a long rest...a long rest sounds nice…”

"Then afterward we'll take a long nap in the sun, and then...more training!"

Yumeno let out a frustrated whine as she ascended the stairs. "Ah, that's such a pain..."

Saihara huddled in the shrubs for a few more minutes, glancing up and down the path, before emerging and wandering back toward the dorms. If it were possible to have stats that could be depleted, he thought, there was no way he had any luck remaining for the day. It was better not to push it any more before dinnertime. A long rest to restore it sounded like a good idea. Was that even how luck worked? He doubted it, but the long run and the stress had left him exhausted regardless, so the weakest pretense was enough to drive him back to bed.

It should be safe to use the wand again, Saihara thought as he returned to the dorms. There was no guarantee what sort of happy illusion it would give him. The first one had been innocent, and Oma's own note specified only that the content would be happy - out loud, he had made it sound like Saihara could use it to see any sort of illusion. As he lay on the bed and stared at the wand beside him, tentatively reaching out to pick it up before withdrawing his hand again, he rationalized that it all added up to some degree of plausible deniability. It wasn't as though the box came with a label that said _Ridiculously Specific Wand for Sexual Illusions about Oma Kokichi_. He visualized that in his mind's eye, the little doodle of Oma giving an enthusiastic thumbs up and a wink like a logo beside the words, his messy handwriting. _Just have some fun for once._

Saihara wasn't certain whether he was reassuring himself that it wouldn't happen again, or that even if he purposely made it happen again, he could at least pretend to himself that he hadn't _expected_ it. Lying to himself to make it easier for himself to enjoy lies that made him happy. Would Oma appreciate that? While musing over that idea, Saihara drifted off to sleep without touching the wand.

* * *

Perhaps mercifully, Oma was not at dinner that night. Somewhat unmercifully, Iruma was in fine form. The plate in front of her was piled with an assortment of random meats, spareribs and seafood and one breaded tonkatsu cutlet perched askew atop the mound. Saihara, eating a small plate of fried rice, stared at the pile of meat in vague astonishment.

“You’re quiet tonight,” she told him. A miniature octopus tentacle wiggled between her chopsticks as she gestured. “You’re _too_ quiet, which can only mean one thing.”

“I’m worried about the situation we’re in?” he offered, which was at least not a complete lie. Iruma shook her head sadly.

“Nah, that’s not it. The truth is...you’re having explicit X-rated sexual fantasies about me!” she snapped, punctuating the abrupt statement by sucking a drop of sauce off the tip of the tentacle. “Triple-X rated! I can tell by how hard your eyes are laser-focused on my tits."

"N-no, I was looking at the meat!" Saihara protested.

"I _know,_ " exclaimed Iruma, "that's what I'm sayin'! And I’m gonna wholeheartedly encourage your perverted ass by doing shit like this, ‘cause despite the unrivaled godliness of this perky body I got blessed with, I’m pretty much the patron saint of virginal numbnuts like you.”

“Th...thank you,” he faltered. Nodding sympathetically, Iruma licked up the length of the tiny tendril, then took it into her mouth and violently chewed on it.

“It’s the cross I bear for the sake of the world. I bet you’re into this kind of rough shit, huh?” she said through the mouthful of food. “I can tell, you’re totally waiting for orders.” Saihara hastily averted his eyes from the gnawing, staring at the other end of the table where Shinguji sat calmly reading a book and eating what looked like a plate of grilled mackerel with grated daikon. “Oh, looks like I hit a little close to home there, eh!? But that’s nothin’ to be ashamed of!” she added, guffawing and slipping another little bundle of tendrils into her mouth.

With some surprise, Saihara considered that it might have been less unsettling to sit near Shinguji, listening to his informative lectures on the many cultural uses of ropes and his low, raspy laughs. With more surprise, it occurred to him that it would almost certainly be less sexually charged to eat dinner with _Oma himself_ than either one of them, even after just having had an explicit illusion about-

“-jerkin’ off!” Iruma concluded, then slammed both fists on the table. Saihara jerked upright in sheer horror, cramming an undercooked chunk of rice into his mouth to avoid having to say anything. For one terrifying moment he expected her to announce her latest invention, a machine that let her watch other people’s dreams while sleeping, and considered his odds of sinking straight through the floor into an early grave through sheer force of will. Saihara, not a willful person at the best of times, resigned himself to the idea that the floor was as far as he would get - though at least the odds were good that he would die there. “Are you even listening to these hot fucking tips I’m laying out for you, Shithara!? I’m just wasting my golden words and my golden time on you if you’re not gonna appreciate it properly!”

“I-I’m sorry!” he stammered around the rice, faintly muffled.

“You better apologize!” She leaned over the table, gesticulating with a small bundle of tentacles. “I’m giving you all this primo jerkoff material out of kindness,” she said, allowing some sauce to drip into her cleavage, then pointing at it. “So you better carve it into your fucking heart already!”

“I, uh. I appreciate that.” In a way, he supposed he did. There was a sort of kindness at work there.

“You wanna lick this off!? I can hear it...the voice of your lower head, saying it can’t believe how lucky it’s getting right now!” Saihara shook his head politely. “Ahhh, don’t be so shy. Well...maybe being shy like that is cute, too.” Iruma sat back, looking oddly pacified by his refusal. “Yeah, maybe that virginal attitude is your charm point after all. Everyone knows that about you.”

“Um...thanks,” Saihara said, poking nervously at the fried rice and wondering if everyone did, in fact, think that. “Er, so what are you working on lately?”

“My latest invention? You think you’re worthy of hearing about it? Well, I guess I’ll take pity on you,” she said, gnawing on a sparerib. “It’s a machine that administers certain drugs to you while you’re in your last cycle of REM sleep before your alarm goes off. That way, you can wake up chilled out enough to sleep again right away, so you’re guaranteed to get at least twice as much done while you sleep!”

“Oh, really?” Saihara asked in deep concern. “I see. Um, what prevents you from just sleeping...forever, if something goes wrong?”

“Heeeee! You sayin’ you’re gonna kill me with it or some shit!?” she squeaked, shrinking back.

“No! Of course not! But...the machine…! What if it just keeps dosing you?”

“Oh, that little fucker only holds like one dose.” She waved a casual hand, dismissing the idea. “Don’t scare me like that, Cuckhara!”

“Ah...sorry about that.” Saihara smiled ruefully. “I’m done, so I’m going to go back to the dorms for the night. Thank you, Iruma-san. For...the material.”

“Don’t sweat it!” she laughed, sticking out her chest. “Actually, sweat it! Sweat it all night long!” She cut into the tonkatsu cutlet at last, then waved her knife at him in a surprisingly friendly motion. “Night, Shithara.” Crumbs sprayed across the table.

“Goodnight."

Loath as Saihara was to admit it, Iruma had somehow left him with some thoughts after all, though they probably weren't the ones she had anticipated. Saihara sighed and picked up the wand from the pillow after that night's training. He gazed up at the air bubbles in the red glass. It wasn't that he was embarrassed by being attracted to Oma specifically, Saihara thought. Oma had many, many qualities, some of which were even _good_ \- he was clever, quick, energetic, seeing effortlessly through tricks that deceived everyone. He smiled and laughed easily, for all that he sounded like a weird horse when he did so. He could be astonishingly cute when not terrifying. He could be surprisingly kind when not cruel. He had a certain duality that made it interesting to talk to him.

His petite body looked like it would fit perfectly against Saihara's.

Oma wasn't boring. Was it weird to like the idea of having illusions about him? Saihara cupped his fingers thoughtfully over his own lips, considering. It wasn't as though he was genuinely involved, not any more than he would be if Saihara had ordinary fantasies. _Have some fun for once_ , his letter had said. _If that's what you wanna use it for,_ his voice echoed in Saihara's memory. _It's got nothing to do with me._ Saihara, sighing in resignation, spun the wand.

* * *

Saihara lay alone in the hammock, watching a shadowy figure fiddle with something on the table. Oma’s room, again. Oma himself, flipping a switch on a small machine that lit up, casting pinpricks of brilliant light through a metal armature to project a collection of stars on the wall and ceiling.

“Ah, it’s that thing.” Saihara stared up at the cosmos around them. “Home Planet. I remember buying that.” Oma’s pale form was visible in the half-light it projected, though the details of the room were still vague and his outline was shadowy. He walked back to the hammock and slipped in beside Saihara.

“Yeah, thanks.” Oma yawned and pressed backward against him in a maneuver that could only be described as a snuggle. Saihara looped an arm around his waist, enjoyed the fit of Oma’s body against his. “I’m turning off the voice acting, though, ‘cause who cares?”

“Okay,” Saihara agreed peaceably. It was so dark, utterly comfortable, and Oma’s body rested firm and warm against his chest. “I know a little, if...if you want me to tell you about it. I can point out Aquila, and Polaris, and the Big Dipper, and...Orion, I guess. And Ursa Major. But probably not Ursa Minor.”

“Great!” Oma nodded. “I turned off the informational lecture by a professional because I really wanted someone with a boring, ordinary voice and no expertise to tell me all about it instead. Lucky for me that _you’re_ here, Saihara-chan!”

“You could have just said ‘no.’”

“But that would be a lie! I want you to tell me allll about it. I really do, I’m _fascinated_.” Oma shifted, yawned again. “C’mon, lay some celestial education on me.”

“Um...sure.” He lifted his hand to point at a spot high on the wall. “You probably already know how to find the Big Dipper, right?” Oma hummed in agreement, tilting his head back against Saihara’s throat as though to get closer. “So, follow the handle down to the cup. The two stars farthest away from the handle. If you follow those up in a line to the ceiling over there, that’s Polaris. It’s the North Star.”

The information felt familiar somehow, he thought. He had known it for a long time, but said out loud, it sounded as though he were just repeating something he had recently heard. “Yeah?” Oma prompted. Saihara stopped thinking about it.

“It’s not north right now, though, you’ve set it up facing…” He took a moment to consider the direction of the dorms, where the sun was when he came out of the dorms in the morning, the way Oma’s room would be facing in relation to that. “East.” Oma shifted his body upward with a wriggle, the flyaway tendrils of his hair brushing Saihara’s mouth. “Um, that makes this sort of tough.” He paused, thinking as he surveyed the walls and ceiling.

“Who _cares_?” Oma whined. “Just keep talking.”

“Oh…” He smiled, realization sinking in, and curled forward. “I can’t find Altair,” he said softly, experimentally murmuring the words into Oma’s ear. “So I can’t show you Aquila.” Oma shuddered against him. He stopped pointing at the walls and lowered his hand to Oma’s side, smoothing at the fabric of his uniform and feeling up his slender waist, the narrow line of one hip. “Down there you can see Orion’s Belt,” he whispered. “It’s meant to be to the east, but…”

“Don't care,” he sighed. Saihara twitched, hardening a little at the airy tone of his voice. It did things to him, that little shudder and the faint sounds of his breath, the encompassing darkness, the way Oma shifted restlessly at the touch as though to encourage him. With a sudden excess of courage he found it in him to kiss the pale shell of Oma’s ear. “Saihara-chan…”

“Mm?” He tried again, chastely kissing his nape beneath the unruly hair, pushing down his scarf to press his lips to the back of his neck. It was comforting to do it with no one looking at him, Oma facing away and shivering at his touch.

“This lecture is sooo boring.” There was a breathlessness to his complaint that curled warmly in Saihara’s lower belly. “Can’t you do something interesting?”

“You asked me to do it in the first place,” he pointed out. The scarf fell away beneath his hand; he planted an openmouthed kiss on the tender, exposed curve where neck met shoulder. Glancing at the fake stars, lightheaded with the rush of contact and the peacefulness of the scene, he noticed a bright spot. “Oma-kun, I found Altair.”

“What?” Oma squirmed. “I don’t care, I...” Saihara could feel him shaking, his sudden intake of air as Saihara kissed a little messily at the soft skin beneath his ear. “I _seriously_ don’t care, and that’s not a lie.”

“Sorry,” he said quietly, enjoying the shiver as his breath fanned across the shell of Oma’s ear. “Then what did you want?”

“I’ll let you do something less boring to me. With your mouth,” Oma offered. “If you wanna.”

“Ah...sure, if that’s okay.” Saihara smiled and awkwardly slid himself downward, bracing himself in the fabric with some difficulty. By the time he had himself stabilized in the hammock Oma was already working on his own pants, impatiently unzipping and yanking them down.

He liked it, that impatience, the way that Oma presented himself so hastily. His face was concealed in the shadows of his hair but his cock was already dusky and hard against the tender whiteness of one thigh, the tip already slick and shiny, the pale outline of his body in the hammock dotted with stars. He let out a low sigh of relief when Saihara’s fingers closed around him and gave him a few experimental strokes, gasped at the first press of lips and tongue; Saihara slid down his length and felt both slender thighs quiver, beautifully reactive.

“Good,” Oma breathed in a low voice, “that’s good, just…” His fingers combed through Saihara’s hair, not pulling or clutching - only stroking, Saihara realized, almost affectionately, and the idea made him moan a little as he gave an experimental suck. “Harder.” Saihara tightened his lips around Oma and worked at him steadily, up and down, swallowing the faint bitterness. He placed his other arm on the far side of Oma’s hips, bracing himself on both elbows to take him in deeper. “Yeah, yes...Saihara-chan, just like that...” The fingers in his hair tightened, not pulling but carefully holding his head, and Oma squirmed beneath him as he sped up. He sucked more roughly, pressing hard with his tongue toward his hard palate, wondering if the pressure would be too much. Oma went tense and quivering. “Yes,” he breathed, legs trembling, “ _oh-_ ”

The position he was in, braced up on his arms and with his own legs curled, left no way for Saihara to touch himself. He ignored the insistent throbbing of his own arousal and continued to move, feeling the bowstring tension of Oma’s thighs, the tremors in his abdomen, how he was brought so easily closer and closer to going over. Oma had given up on speaking - he lay back, writhing endlessly, both hands buried in Saihara’s hair as he panted. Even so far gone, his grip was soft and coaxing, fingers pressing into his scalp as though trying to encourage him.

“I’m gonna,” he finally breathed, his voice low and ragged. “I’m...there, I, nnh, Saihara-chan…” Saihara continued, speeding up. “I’m gonna come,” he said more clearly, then seized up and went motionless, breath loud and fast in the still air as he released into Saihara’s waiting mouth.

Saihara drew his tongue and lips carefully up Oma’s length after his body went limp, feeling acutely the way he twitched and gasped at the stimulation, to leave him clean before tucking him carefully back away. As he swallowed down the last of it and admired the stars dotting Oma’s slender form one last time, the way his small chest rose and fell with sated, lazy breaths, the scene faded away.

* * *

Saihara opened his eyes in a daze, a fond smile still lingering on his face, and rolled out of bed to stagger to the bathroom. When he returned to bed and went back to sleep, he found himself easily able to sleep until the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monotaro says one of the Monokubs shouldn’t be there specifically because Monosuke is destroyed before the dojo exists. Monosuke's existence is a weird meta-joke.
> 
> Yumeno uses the most arcane of all sigils, the fearsome [_henohenomoheji!_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henohenomoheji) It depletes every drop of her mana, but they aren't caught...so it's super effective.


	4. Electric Tempest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little did you know, Illusion Rod was missing a letter all along. Welcome back to **Illusion Road!!!** One of those stories where it turns out everything was a dream the whole time.
> 
> ...Just kidding. Even though this is a flimsy doujin-esque excuse for smut, this chapter is **100% clean**. Here is where I confess that I have lied to you all along - I always intended to tell you a little story after all, and was building up to it, and that's what this chapter is for. But we still have one chapter, so there's still time for smut after all. I promise. Unless that's a lie, too...
> 
>  **090\. Electric Tempest (1000 Casino Coins):** A cool high-powered water gun. The water shoots over 10 yards and it can be fired continuously for a whole minute. Fun for kids and adults!

Saihara woke to the morning announcement more alert than he could recall feeling since his first day at the academy. Setting out to the dining hall for breakfast, he wished only that there were birds or cicadas or any living creature at all, anything to make noise aside from the same uncanny silence that set the mood every day. He briefly pondered whistling to break it up a little.

It was a terrible idea, he decided. Doing something that uncharacteristically upbeat would be asking the universe for something awful to happen.

Despite his caution, Saihara’s stomach dropped when halfway between the dorms and the school he saw Yumeno sprawled on the path. “Oh _no_ ,” he breathed, running for her prone form. Her hat lay crumpled on the stone a foot away from her unmoving body. “Yumeno-san. _Yumeno-san_!”

“Nyeeeeh,” she whined feebly as he crouched beside her and turned her over. Her eyes stared up into his, half-lidded and glazed with exhaustion. “Looks like...he got me.”

“Who?” Saihara asked frantically as he looked for any evidence of physical harm. “Who did this to you!? I’ll go get-”

A powerful stream of water connected with the side of Saihara’s head, strong enough that he toppled sideways from his crouch and landed beside Yumeno on the stones. From a distance he heard a whinnying laugh. “Oh,” he said, staring at her solemn face fixed on the sky. Cold water dripped from his hair across his face as he remembered Oma perched in front of the slot machines in the casino, the collection of prizes available at the exchange counter. “I think I get it now.”

“Now he got you too,” Yumeno told him, sitting up to reach for her soggy hat. “But because I played along...I can go to breakfast.” She perched it on her head, frowning as it flopped limply into her eyes.

“You set me up?” Saihara asked, aghast.

“Well...yeah. I know you’d never expect it from someone so cute, but I had no choice. ‘Cause I can’t find any potions to restore my MP, so when he knocked me over with the water, I couldn’t turn it back on him with my mirror spell.” She sighed. “Mirror costs a lot of MP. It’s a real hassle, you know? Plus, this is all your fault in the first place.”

“I guess that’s true. You used your MP for my benefit yesterday, so I can’t complain.” He rolled onto his back, grit crunching beneath his uniform.

“That’s right.” Yumeno picked herself up from the path. “But we’ll save some breakfast for you.” She waved at him as she walked for the dining hall door. Saihara sat up, weakly waved back, then shrieked at the cold water that blasted the back of his head.

“Hey, Saihara-chan.” Dripping, Saihara cast a betrayed stare over his shoulder. Oma smiled imperiously over the bright orange barrel of the water gun. “Thanks for the Electric Tempest.”

“I didn’t get that for you.”

“Of course you did, Saihara-chan. Yumeno-chan knows it, so now _eeeveryone_ will know.” Oma’s cold smile widened, grew wicked. “Even if it was a lie. Everything that’s about to happen...all the terrors that are about to unfold...it’s all exclusively your fault.”

“Uh…” Saihara pushed his hair back from his face with one hand and wiped at his eyes. “I mean, no one’s going to believe you as soon as I explain that you lied, so…”

“Also, if you can’t defeat me now that I’m in my most powerful form, I’ll never give you the information you failed to get from me yesterday.”

“Ah. You’re blackmailing me with information so I can’t explain to everyone.” He stood up and stared at Oma for a long moment. The water gun was so implausibly huge that it was like an arm-mounted cannon, Oma’s small hand clutched tight around the handle in the front, the two back handles braced around his forearm. The whole unwieldy apparatus was fastened to his arm below the elbow with a strap. His other hand lazily worked the pump-action to build pressure in the chamber; Saihara tried not to look too hard at the motion. “How am I meant to defeat you?”

“It's easy - you just have to capture me! But wait,” Oma said, letting go of the pump to hold up one finger. “Because we’re facing off like this, there's something we have to do first. I’m the evil overlord and you’re the detective of justice, after all, so you have to explain my cunning plan.”

“Ah, right.” Saihara considered it. “This is what you were earning coins for at the casino yesterday. I didn’t buy it for you,” he continued, omitting the fact that no one else would buy Oma anything. “So you bought it for yourself.”

“Mm-hmm?” hummed Oma, leveling the water gun at him. A mixture of water and ice sloshed noisily in the reservoir.

“If you blame me, it becomes my problem rather than everyone’s problem, so it’s likely I’ll have to stop you. But to make sure I’d go along with you, you needed to have something I would want…so you set up a problem for me and gave me time to get curious. Then..." His eyes widened. "You purposely set up diversions, so I couldn't get an answer from you.”

“Brilliant, as expected of Saihara-chan!” Oma stretched his arms out - the arm holding the water gun trembled a little under the weight - and smirked. “It was easy to hide down there from you while I earned the coins for this. My brain is made up of at least thirty percent wicked schemes, you know.”

"You...you set all of that up so I couldn't get to you again. You planned all of yesterday's events out ahead of time. Were you actually downstairs in the casino the whole time, hiding...?" Oma shrugged at the question. Saihara tried to consider it rationally, dizzied by the revelation that the previous day’s chaos had been orchestrated. It defied belief. It made no sense. How would Oma know that Saihara wouldn’t check the student handbook and see his whereabouts? How could he be sure that Saihara wouldn't become suspicious? How could Oma anticipate that Saihara would be chased away without finding out what was going on? Had he really been there all along? _Did it even matter?_ The questions swam confusingly through his mind, dwarfed by the thought that he had been dancing in Oma’s palm the whole time. And if Oma had planned it out in advance...

“Is this why you gave me a gift in the first place?”

“Hmmm?” prompted Oma, inquisitively tilting his head.

“You gave me something mysterious to make sure I’d have questions only you could answer...”

Saihara considered the idea that the entire setup was a prank. Would Oma give him a gift that showed illusions like the ones he had seen only to immediately tear it all down as a joke? With a sinking feeling, Saihara realized that _of course he would_ \- Oma never offered anyone anything but a glittering series of lies. Oma never genuinely invited anyone in.

“You didn’t get me a present to be nice,” he said, defeated. “You did it to set me up.”

“Nishishishi!” Oma hissed, his face warping into a wicked grin, malice spreading out from his body like a wave. “Buying you something just to set you up as a public joke really is perfect for someone like me, isn’t it?”

Saihara stared at him, hands limp at his sides. Oma stared back, grinning viciously, water gun leveled at Saihara’s heart.

“Um...then I’m going to breakfast, Oma-kun.” Sighing, mildly disgusted, he turned toward the dining hall.

“Okay! But afterward, you gotta catch me.” Switching to an ordinary smile, Oma waved with his free hand. “Otherwise my reign of terror will continue, and everyone will know it’s your fault!”

Saihara promised himself that, though Oma had the water gun leveled at him as he walked away, he wouldn’t run. He would walk away with dignity and gravitas, not showing anxiety. He broke that promise the instant the cold water hit the center of his back.

* * *

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Momota told him solemnly, grasping both of Saihara’s hands before he had a chance to speak. Everyone else, sitting around the table, watched the spectacle. “You don’t need to explain it to me, Saihara. I told you I’d be responsible for you, and…” He released Saihara’s hands to clench his own fists, eyes aflame with passion. “For that reason I, Momota Kaito, Luminary of the Stars, will help you right this wrong!”

“I just got a little wet,” Yumeno interjected, morosely chewing on a slice of toast.

“And _I_ can’t stand by while Yumeno-san is victimized by that little degenerate!” shouted Chabashira, driving her fist into the table with an astonishing clatter. “I wasn’t there to save you, but I can promise that menace won’t harm another innocent girl, not so long as I draw breath in this world!”

“Just a little wet, that’s all.”

“And _I_ just wanna try out this new invention I made the other day!” Iruma snapped, slapping a blueprint on the table with a second, less astonishing clatter. “It’s built from the same water gun, but autonomously guided, and it has the strength of a pressure washer so you can clean the exterior of your house while you sleep! This kind of penetrative force…” She shivered, embracing herself with both arms. “It’s almost unimaginable.”

“You can’t use that,” Saihara objected, finally getting a word in edgewise.

“You absolutely can’t use it,” Shirogane echoed. “It’s plain to see that would kill him.”

“Hey, get him outta my misery, am I right!?” Iruma cackled, then shrank back when her joke met with a table of stern, unsmiling faces. “Eeeek, you know I’m just joking! I'm gonna decrease the water pressure before I sic it on him, obviously. Y-you hypocrites, you know I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking!”

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Saihara cleared his throat. “U-um, anyway, Momota-kun and Chabashira-san are helping me, so…” Looking at the two of them standing with fists clenched, the air around them thick with the fire of justice, Saihara faltered. “Nonlethally, and without actually hurting anyone.”

“We’ll fight fire with fire!” said Momota. “By using water!” Saihara gave him a bewildered glance. “By using water guns,” he explained.

“Great idea!” Chabashira said, then stiffened. “For someone like you. Well, even the worst type of clock is right twice a day.”

Keebo emitted a noise like an electronic snort. "That makes it seem like you both just want to play with water guns-"

“So we don’t need anyone else to help with this!” Saihara interrupted, pointedly not looking at Iruma’s horrifying blueprints. Iruma sank back into her chair and sulked. Gonta, who had been sitting forward in his chair and listening with intense concern, nodded peaceably and went back to his plate.

“You may note that no one else was volunteering to do so,” murmured Shinguji, drinking green tea in perfect tranquility at the far end of the table.

“It’s unbearably childish.” Harukawa gazed at her innocuous bowl of oats with single-minded fury. “Just because children like me doesn’t mean _I’m_ willing to behave like one.”

“I am, so let’s go arm ourselves! Come on, man!” Momota seized Saihara’s arm and stormed toward the exit.

“Ah, so you’re getting into it after all.” Saihara smiled wanly and allowed himself to be dragged away, Chabashira on his heels. "But I didn't get to eat anything."

* * *

“So you’re paying for this, right Saihara?” asked Momota. “I mean, I’d do it, but...I’m a little short on coins. I’m pretty sure I’m due for a big win, it just...y’know, hasn’t come through for me yet.” Saihara emptied his coin case out on the counter with a rueful smile for Monodam, the only Monokub at the exchange counter. Monodam gazed at the glimmering pile, blank robotic gaze fraught with the same deep trauma as always, then vacuumed the entire quantity of coins into his mouth.

“IT-IS-ENOUGH,” Monodam confirmed, then ejected a small heap of residual coins. They gleamed with an awful, uncanny wetness. Saihara stood in motionless horror. “THE-REST-ARE-CLEAN-NOW.”

“U...uhm... “ Saihara reached out with a trembling hand and swept them over the edge of the counter into his coin case, touching them with only the barest tips of his fingers. “Thanks…” Monodam mutely placed three water guns on the countertop and turned away from him. “Thanks…” Saihara repeated uncomfortably. Monodam made no move to turn back around. “Um, see you later?”

“C’mon, man!” Saihara flinched as Momota shoved a water gun into his arms. “No time to waste!”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry.” Saihara braced the gun, tightening the strap around his forearm. “Okay, let’s go.” He followed the others out the door.

From behind a chair on the far side of the stairs, a small figure uncoiled itself and stood looking after their retreating figures. “So they decided to help you after all,” Oma said, tapping a thoughtful index finger against his chin. “Three against one.” His lips parted in a wicked smile; the air around him hung heavy with ill intent. “I like those odds.”

* * *

Saihara would always thereafter remember the battle as a series of loosely connected events, most of them awful. There were parts that were a normal water gun fight. He knew, at least objectively, that it had happened: Oma running away from them normally, Oma spraying them from a distance and fleeing. Chabashira working with him to catch Oma in a pincer attack near the garden and thoroughly soaking him as he ran screaming. Saihara was clinically aware, in a distant, dissociated sort of way, that it was a fun thing everyone enjoyed and he should have positive memories of it.

It was just that the ordinary memories were obliterated by the dizzying, sickening lurch as a net rose beneath his feet near the dining hall door and trapped Saihara, swinging him helplessly under an overhanging bough, Momota struggling to lower him to the ground as water sprayed him directly in the face and Oma's obnoxious laugh echoed in his ears. The sudden plunge into the mud beneath that ruined his uniform jacket and soaked him through with dirt. Chabashira lifting him from the mud and pushing him to retreat from the merciless, icy spray. The sounds of shouting and pandemonium mingled with the whinnies of Oma's sadistic mirth.

It didn't stop there. The panicked rush after Momota to seek shelter in the back garden, watching him pump the gun to build water pressure only to be soaked as he ran through the door by a washtub of ice water that had been carefully balanced just overhead. The look Momota cast over his shoulder, at first angry and then horrified, his face suddenly pale and haunted as though he had seen a ghost. Oma’s terrifying, hollow nightmare smile that etched itself permanently into Saihara's brain at the moment he turned around, though the sight itself was obliterated almost instantly by the water that washed away his sight and filled his mouth when he screamed.

Saihara recalled Chabashira spotting Oma lurking in the treeline, his mouth a dark, smiling crescent, his eyes horrifying circles of pure malice. He would never forget her headlong rush toward him, her shrill battlecry interrupted by a faint swooshing noise as she vanished entirely from sight. Saihara, with some degree of shame, fled instantly at the sudden silence and the sight of Oma’s horrible smile widening, widening.

Saihara huddled against Momota beneath a table under the gazebo, glancing frantically in all directions. His hair hung lank in his face; his gakuran jacket had long been shed, heavy with water, and the dress shirt beneath was soaked and streaked with grime. Momota had fared little better, though the galaxy within his jacket remained somehow pristine. “Where...where’s Chabashira-san? Where did she go!?”

“Behind the school, near the garden,” Momota said grimly. “Pretty sure she fell into a pit trap.” Saihara shook his head in disbelief. “Remember? He came out of the trees near the garden, so she made a break for him, and…well, you were already running away by then. You gotta stop letting him get into your head like this, man.” Momota’s expression darkened. “ _It’s what he wants_.”

“There was a pit trap? How was there a pit trap!?”

“After the net trap he set up near the dining hall, and that washtub he had propped up so it’d spill on me when I walked in, you’re really gonna doubt that there was a pit trap?”

“I guess not.” Saihara, bewildered, failed to understand how Oma had prepared any of it. At least no one had fallen for the obvious trap near the casino door that was just a large cardboard box propped up on a stick with a slice of Astro Cake underneath it, though it was likely that one only existed in the first place to provoke Momota. At least they had gotten some good shots in; Oma was as thoroughly soaked as any of them. Saihara winced as it occurred to him that he was already thinking of these things as mitigating factors in Oma’s victory. Oma's unquestionable, nearly flawless victory.

“Well, I’ll go get her.” Momota climbed out from beneath the table, looking warily around. “That little fucker always takes things too far.”

“I’m wounded!” shouted Oma, popping out of a shrub by the path leading to the school. Saihara jerked upright quickly enough to hit his head on the bottom of the table. “Sooo wounded by how Momota-chan talks shit about me when I’m not around!” With uncanny accuracy, he sprayed the recovering Saihara with icy water and fled as Momota rounded the table to dash after him, whinnying giddily with laughter as Momota hit him with a cold spray.

Saihara, shivering and rubbing the back of his head with his free hand, took his time walking around the school perimeter. By the time he arrived at the pit trap, Momota was hauling out a muddy, disheveled Chabashira and Oma had vanished again. “Um...I think maybe we should call it a day,” he volunteered.

Chabashira turned her gaze on him, filled with a righteous blaze of fury, and was sprayed from the side before saying anything. Oma leaned casually on a tree in the distance and smirked. He lifted the barrel of the Electric Tempest to his mouth and blew across it.

“I’m just helping. Because Chabashira-chan got absolutely filthy somehow..." He tilted his head, his expression infuriatingly calm and ingenuous. "I wonder how?" Chabashira turned to face him with excruciating slowness; Saihara could almost see the aura of sheer power like waves rising from her body, like tangible heat. "I wonder how long it's going to take until everyone learns to bow down to me properly? I'm starting to get soooo _bored_ with you all."

"Oma-kun," Saihara said nervously, "um, maybe you should lighten up a little? We could start winding down now, and-" He winced as Oma sprayed water lightly above his head, letting it rain down on him.

"Maybe three against one wasn't fair," he sighed, examining the fingernails of his free hand. "Maybe Momota-chan should have joined me, as a handicap-" A powerful stream of water struck the tree trunk just above his head. Bits of wet bark rained down on him from above. “...Huh?” As one, they all turned to look at the source; a spider-legged gun bearing a huge water reservoir and scuttling freely through the grass. “What...what is that?”

“Iruma’s pressure washer!” Saihara gasped before the machine sprayed again. Oma leaped out of the way as the stream stripped bark off the tree right where he had been leaning, revealing pale wood underneath. “It’s escaped!"

"Oh, shit!" Momota shouted. Oma fled, his face suddenly dead serious, pelting past Saihara at full speed. The machine instantly gave chase. Saihara ran after them around the school and onward to Iruma’s laboratory, noting with horror that the school walls along the way were sprayed clean in a repeating pattern as though the machine had been aiming for Oma as he sprinted.

It took a minute of frantic hammering on Iruma’s laboratory door before it opened a crack, one bleary eye peeking through and squinting in the sunlight. From inside, Saihara heard an irritable groan as the door swung open. “Whaaa?” Iruma asked, sleepily rubbing at her face. “I’m getting a lot done today, so if you wouldn’t mind not interrupting-”

“Your pressure washer is trying to commit murder!”

“It’s fucking what!?” Iruma pushed him to the side and ran out, staring in shock at a soaked, frayed rope attached to a stake near the door of the laboratory. “Shit, it escaped before I lowered the water pressure! Oh fuck, and that means _I’ll_ get killed for murdering the little asshole by mistake!” She seized her own hair in both hands, eyes welling up all at once with horrified tears. “What...what a waste of genius! The world will never be able to recover from-”

“Can’t you stop it somehow?”

“Oh, yeah, right! I can turn it off remotely if we just get close enough to it.” Iruma grabbed his arm and pulled him into the laboratory, letting him stand awkwardly just inside the doorway as she rummaged through a pile of electronic parts on a sofa. “At least one of your heads stays level when I’m around, huh?” She punched one fist into the air victoriously, body stiffening with resolve as she produced a small device from the heap. “Let’s roll, Shithara.”

Saihara noted with deepening concern that the clean patches on the walls and path were getting closer together, though it made it easier for them to follow the trail like a dotted line. Oma had fled around the school entirely, from what Saihara had seen earlier, but there were fresh new lines extending down the stairs and along the path near them. They led straight toward the Shrine of Judgment.

There were no lines coming back from the shrine. Saihara’s heart sank. “How long can he run?” he worried out loud as he hurried toward the building. Iruma followed, fiddling with the remote.

“I mean, it’s not like he’ll die right away even if it catches him!” she reassured him. “It’ll, uh...well, it’ll be a high-pressure injection injury! I guess it’ll kinda flay him alive or crush his flesh or something, and that’ll definitely take a long time, and we’d hear the screaming by now, so he’s just fine so far.”

“Oh my god,” Saihara gasped, speeding up.

“Yeah, damn, that was less reassuring than I meant to be,” Iruma said, wincing. Oma came into view as they rounded the shrine, running toward them in the opposite direction.

“Oma-kun!” shouted Saihara. Oma looked at him, looked behind him at Iruma in dawning horror, and whirled around to run away just as Momota rounded the building from the other side. Oma quailed and froze for the barest instant before leaping sideways to evade a blast of water, stumbling, caught between the two of them and the pressure washer approaching to back him against the wall.

He scrambled backward and away from the machine, bracing his arms in front of his face for protection, and was tackled flat to the ground by Momota an instant before the spray cleaned the stone above them to a high gloss.

At the same time a figure leaped from the roof of the shrine, descending from on high like an avenging angel. “HAIYAAAH!” howled Chabashira, coming down foot-first on the top of the water reservoir. The spider legs crumpled, the tank denting in and hemorrhaging water freely from one side. She leaped from the top and seized the barrel of the gun under one arm, bracing her hand under it to lift the entire thing from the ground and hurl it into the wall of the shrine above Momota’s huddled figure. Parts flew everywhere with a deafening crash.

Iruma, standing beside Saihara and staring blankly at the spectacle, finally pushed the off button. “Not really sure why I bothered doing that,” she told no one. "So I'm not gonna die, at least, but...I guess that invention's a lost cause, huh?" A little sadly, she turned and walked away, remote hanging limply from her hand. "Man..."

“I finally got you!” roared Momota. " _You little shit!_ " Saihara watched in bemusement as Momota sat up and hooked his arms around Oma’s from behind, pulling his shoulders back. “Okay, Saihara, get him.” Oma began to kick and roll. Momota looped his legs around Oma’s small frame and pressed his shins to the ground, immobilizing him entirely.

“Uh…” Saihara, surveying the mechanical carnage littering the earth, hesitantly leveled the water gun at Oma’s chest. “Um, okay. We captured you. I guess that means we’re done.” He winced as Oma shrieked and began to cry.

“Meanies! I can’t believe you all ganged up on me. I can’t believe I almost died!”

“Oma-kun, no one wanted that,” Saihara objected weakly, lowering his arm in guilt. “Everyone protected you...”

“And I can’t believe _Saihara-chan_ is gonna be the one who finishes me off,” shouted Oma without skipping a beat, tears rolling down his cheeks. “You hated my gift that much? What awful thing did it show you!?”

“What gift?” asked Momota. “Is this some lie you’re making up to get out of this? Because it isn’t gonna work. Come on, Saihara.”

Saihara aimed again and paused. Oma’s crying was obviously fake, the noisy crocodile tears no one ever took seriously, but a thought had pierced his mind.

“Really,” Chabashira said flatly, her face set in disgust. “Do it. Little degenerate deserves it. He deserves it _so much._ ” The ornate loops of her hair were flattened with mud, the huge bow on the back of her head lank and brown and filthy. “It’ll bother him more if _you_ do it, so just do it already.”

“Owwww!” Oma screamed, flailing. “You’re gonna rip my arms off, it hurts, _it hurts!_ ”

“It’s true that you set me up,” Saihara said, “but...it doesn’t matter what your methods of diverting me from the truth were. It’s about motive. You didn’t tell me why you gave me a gift until _I told you_ it was malicious.” Oma dangled limply forward like a cat in Momota’s grip, sobbing miserably. “When it came to _what_ you were doing, I had it right. You probably had a hundred plans to keep me guessing, but…”

Momota groaned. “Man, Oma. I get that you two have some kind of personal thing happening here, but would you shut the hell up for a minute!?” Oma kicked against the legs pinning his own and emitted a long, piercing screech. “Argh, you’re so damn annoying!”

Saihara lifted his free hand to his mouth, pondering. Oma had set him up, but the only reason the joke was cruel was that it had been _personal_. If he hadn’t known the form Saihara’s illusions would take - if Saihara had only experienced happy illusions about everyone else - it would have been harmless, a silly prank. A present and an invitation to play.

_Oma hadn’t known what he had seen._

“It was a prank,” he realized, “but...it wasn’t actually malicious.” The noise stopped. Startled, Saihara looked down and made direct eye contact with Oma, whose face had miraculously transformed from a mask of agony to a calm smile. His cheek was smeared with dirt; his white uniform had become a camouflage pattern of streaked grass stains and mud.

“But it was malicious,” he said. “You figured me out before, Saihara-chan! I’ve never done a single good thing in my entire life, just like I told you.”

“No, that’s wrong. You set this up…” Saihara paused, thought about Oma’s motive without imparting malice to him. There was only one real end result of his scheming, however ridiculous it was, however ludicrously far he had taken it. “Because...you like it when people chase you around.”

“Eh? Spending one thousand coins just to get Saihara-chan to pursue me?” Oma attempted to shrug, his expression falling into an unimpressed moue of disdain. “Wouldn’t that be a huge waste of money? I had no idea you were even egotistical enough to have thoughts like that. Gross.” Saihara’s expression slowly lightened into a smile.

“Thank you for the present, Oma-kun.”

“What the hell, you’re forgiving him now!?” Momota asked in obvious consternation. "He trapped you in a net!" Saihara leveled the water gun at Oma again, watched as he began to smile back, and pulled the trigger. Oma shrieked with laughter, rolled lithely from Momota’s grasp as easily as shrugging off a coat, evaded Chabashira’s grab, and sprang into a run.

Saihara pursued him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oma secretly achieved that pit trap by drawing unconvincing, shitty blueprints for it and asking Monotaro why that part of the Academy wasn’t built yet. As Chabashira struggled to climb the walls, he may or may not have shrieked "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!" while unmercifully spraying her with ice water, but since this story is from Saihara's perspective, it's something we can never know.


	5. Fully-Automated Shaved Ice Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little did you know, I'm confused by literary devices. Welcome back to **Allusion Rod!!!** The story of a coffeeshop caught in a series of time loops that also happens to sell various floral arrangements which employees cough up due to unrequited love.
> 
> ...Just kidding. It's a thinly veiled doujin-esque excuse for smut after all! Thank you for reading and for putting up with me.
> 
>  **110\. Fully-Automated Shaved Ice Machine:** A shaved ice machine that automatically crushes up ice and pours strawberry syrup on top.

“Okay, so now that we’re all done running around like idiots, here’s something cool.” Iruma gestured to the gazebo table where a small, half-spherical blue machine stood on tall metal legs, bearing an upright cylinder of ice in a tube set in a hole on its back.

“Hey, I love these!” Chabashira, despite still being coated thoroughly with mud, lit up in excitement. Iruma slid a disposable cup under the machine and nervously surveyed the three of them.

“Because you assholes didn’t like my Automatic Gun That Pressure Washes Your House While You Sleep, I modified _this_ stupid bullshit s-so…” Iruma fiddled with her hair. “So everyone would just pretend that didn’t happen.” She flipped a switch and the ice cylinder rotated in the tube, grinding down onto the blade. “We’re square now, right? Like it didn’t happen? So hey, we’ll all just pretend it didn’t happen. Never even happened-”

“Yeah! That’s a great idea!” Momota interrupted, punching his fists together for punctuation. “Especially in weather like this, it’s exactly what everyone needs.”

“Didn’t this come from the MonoMono Machine?” Saihara asked. “I...um, I gave this ‘stupid bullshit’ to you.” Iruma flinched and turned wide, betrayed eyes on him as shaved ice began to fall into the cup.

“U-uhh!” Iruma cowered as though he had threatened her. “I mean, no, yeah, it was great, but I...improved on it! Now this small paddle rotates into place, then lowers to compress the ice shavings into the cup a little bit at intervals,” she explained nervously, pointing to a small metal paddle sticking out to the side beneath the blade and cylinder. “See it? And the paddle has spikes that poke into the ice to help the syrup really get in there deep when the machine gives it that sweet pump and squirt.” The machine, at that moment, poured strawberry syrup into the ice. “Mmmh, just like that.”

“Wow, I’m super impressed!” Oma shouted. Saihara, standing beside him, jumped. “I snuck up when you weren’t looking, Saihara-chan. You should be more careful.” Saihara flinched again as he glimpsed Chabashira’s thunderous expression. Oma, apparently unconcerned, folded his hands behind his head and grinned.

“You _should_ be impressed, because-!” Iruma began, proudly sticking out her chest as she began to stand straight again.

“Because building on an existing invention isn’t just derivative garbage at all!” Oma whisked the completed shaved ice cup from under the machine and ran away with a spoon in his hand, snickering. Iruma, glowering, shoved another cup under the ice.

“Little bastard,” she grumbled. “Hate that guy. You want the next one?”

Saihara waved it politely away. “I’ll take two,” volunteered Momota. “Harumaki likes sweets.”

“Oh, oh!” Chabashira shouted. “Then I’ll also take two, one for me and one for Yumeno-san! Unless you think she’d...share one with me?” Her eyes took on an abstracted, dreamy expression as she gazed at the cup. “We could even share the spoon. An indirect kiss from Yumeno-san...”

“Uh, yeah...” Iruma uncomfortably twisted a strand of her own hair, surveying the mud dripping from Chabashira’s clothes to the concrete. “You better just take two.” Saihara nodded to excuse himself, then walked to the next table. Oma kicked his legs idly over the edge of the bench, spoon sticking out of his mouth, dirt still smeared across his cheek. The sky beyond the dome had gone orange with encroaching dusk.

“What are _you_ doing here, sworn enemy?” he asked, ostentatiously licking the spoon and sticking it back into the ice. “Go eat with Momota-chan.” Saihara folded his hands on the table. “You’re not even gonna eat?”

“He’s bringing a cup to Harukawa-san. I...don’t really like this stuff.”

“Really? For something made by that pig, it’s not bad.” Oma took another bite. “And I stole this one, so she can’t have made it to poison me. So...Saihara-chan.”

“Mm?”

“There weren’t actually any instructions, you know? There never were. It was a lie!” Saihara sighed. The information was more disappointing than surprising. “The Monokubs explained how to use it and the kinds of things you might see, and no one wrote anything down, and that’s the truth. But...I think I figured out what it must have shown you, at least a little.”

“Um…” Saihara looked uncomfortably away, to where Chabashira stood fawning over the shaved ice machine and a satisfied-looking Iruma. Momota had already gone.

“You took it reaaally personally that I tricked you.” Oma scooped out more ice. “Hey.” With difficulty, Saihara looked back at him and found the spoon pointed at him, a small heap of strawberry ice leveled at his mouth.

“U-um…” Oma moved it toward him. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and found himself closing his eyes. For a long moment he waited for Oma to push the spoon against his nose, throw it on his uniform, spill it into his hair. It slipped carefully into his mouth. He closed his lips and let Oma pull it back out, felt the downy ice melting to spread artificial strawberry across his tongue like flavored medicine.

“See? It’s good.” Saihara shook his head.

“I _really_ don’t like this stuff.”

“Hmmm…” Oma leaned over the table, shooting him a conspiratorial look. “But you accepted it from me anyway. That’s just more evidence. For a detective, you’re pretty loose with information yourself, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like I’m much of a detective,” he sighed. “Or like I even did anything today.”

“You didn’t fall for my cake trap. You know, that Astro Cake under the cardboard box?”

“If that’s the standard you have for me, isn’t that even more depressing?” Saihara smiled weakly.

“Oh, no. That was the trap for Momota-chan. And the lethal pit trap for Chabashira-chan, but there wasn’t enough time to install the iron spikes at the bottom. Lucky for her, huh?” Oma showed his teeth in an eerie grin, his mouth stained red with dye. “I’m surprised I _wasn’t_ able to trap that stupid idiot under a box. Maybe if I’d used a little moon buggy instead of the Astro Cake.”

“Don’t talk about them like that. Did you even thank them for helping you?” Oma shrugged, stuck out his red tongue. “Was the net for me?”

“No...I didn’t think you’d be running in front of anyone, honestly. You always surprise me.” Oma tilted his head, eyes wide. “There wasn’t anything designed for Saihara-chan. Because if it’s you...I’ll let you catch me.”

Saihara looked again at Iruma, who in the process of packing up the shaved ice machine awkwardly fumbled the ice cylinder to the ground. She stomped on the pavement, angrily punching the air, and left the shattered ice to melt on the concrete. He wondered if looking elsewhere to conceal half of his face would hide the blush that was creeping toward the tips of his ears, if Oma would be kind enough to let his reactions slide without tormenting him.

“I doubt that,” he said, partly to Oma and partly in response to his own thoughts.

“Of course it’s a lie. Did you think I’d be that easy?” Satisfied, he threw the cup in the trash and stood up, stretching. “Well, time to get cleaned up. Hey, Saihara-chan.” Saihara looked up at him. “Today wasn’t boring, right? Sooo, you’re welcome.” Oma walked away with a casual wave.

“Um...I guess not.” Saihara sat alone beneath the gazebo, looking at the brightly lit dormitory in the deepening dusk. Remembering the day brought back terrifying snippets of senseless events, like trying to recall some war movie he had only half-watched. Oma had taken everything too far. He was almost seriously injured. Chabashira and Momota probably hated him.

Saihara swallowed down residual strawberry flavor and grimaced at the taste. Oma’s voice echoed in his thoughts. _If it’s you...I’ll let you catch me._

“It wasn’t boring,” he acknowledged, and meant it.

* * *

Saihara lay in fresh clothes on the bed, cleaned up and staring blankly at the ceiling light. Though he could already feel the ache beginning in his muscles, he was unsurprised when the doorbell rang. Harukawa, he assumed, coming to fetch him for training, though he had half-expected it to be called off considering that doing a hundred push-ups after running all day might actually kill him.

He opened the door a crack. “Hey,” Oma greeted him, slipping an envelope through the door.

“Oma-kun? What is it?” Saihara took it and allowed the door to swing open. Oma’s hair was wet, the dirt washed from his face. He wore a clean white uniform.

“The instructions, stupid. Did you think there weren’t any just because I told you there weren’t after having told you there were? Because obviously that means there are and there were all along.” Saihara, surrendering to the flood of words, shook his head and said nothing. “Anyway...I guess that’s that. You got everything you wanted!” He stood with his hands laced together behind his head. Despite his carefree smile, it seemed as though he were waiting for something.

“Thank you?” Saihara offered uncertainly.

Oma nodded. “Mm-hmm, you earned it. Goodnight, Saihara-chan.” Saihara watched him turn away before a thought occurred to him.

“Wait!” he shouted, then cleared his throat. “Wait. Do you want to come in?” Oma twirled around at once and slipped past him. Saihara turned to find him handling the Illusion Rod, spinning it in his fingers with the orb pointed harmlessly at the wall. “Did you want to try using that?” The sight of Oma in his room, examining his things, left him lightheaded. He closed the door and took a deep breath to brace himself.

“I hate being lied to,” Oma said. “But...I knew Saihara-chan would like this.” He set it back down in the silk. Saihara approached to put the envelope down beside the box, not opening it.

“Even though it was a trick.” Even the envelope might be a trick, Saihara thought. It wasn’t easy to read Oma’s motives, or to determine what he was up to, or even to understand what proportion of his lies and tricks were actually kind. In the end, there were only the results of his actions to use as a guide. A thoughtful gift that was a prank that was an invitation to pursue him. A water fight that led to a chaotic, terrifying day where no one was seriously injured and everyone got dessert.

Oma shrugged, staring curiously up at him as though reading his thoughts. “You really did like it, right?” He moved a little closer. “You liked what it showed you?” he asked in a lower, softer voice, wiping a smudge off the red glass sphere with the tip of one finger.

“I did like it,” he concluded, and broke into a nervous sweat. There was no way to misread the situation. Unless the whole thing was an elaborate lie, which hardly seemed worth the effort, it was impossible for Oma to be more obvious about his interest without draping himself around Saihara like an ungainly feather boa. “I’d also like to do this.” He leaned forward to attempt a kiss, relieved when Oma agreeably tilted his face upward. It lasted only a moment - he closed his eyes and met Oma’s lips off-center, felt a small hand touching his cheek as though to move him into a better position. He pulled back instead to fix his gaze firmly on the wall.

“Saihara-chan!” Oma exclaimed. Saihara risked a glance and found him radiant, eyes sparkling. His heart skipped at the sight. “You always surprise me. Even though I _was_ almost standing on your foot, I still didn’t think you’d go for it. And so awkwardly!”

“Uh...”

“Like you’ve never done it before in your entire life, you pathetic, kissless virgin!” His hands curled into excited fists in front of his chest. Saihara’s heart, caught mid-skip, tripped and plunged into his guts. “Oh, that’s completely _true_ , isn’t it!? You should see your face.”

It abruptly occurred to Saihara that no comforting illusion could hope to compare to the actual Oma Kokichi. Not because Oma was in any way comforting, no - he _could_ be, but in all his duality he was more than that. Oma had the potential in him to be the _perfect, diametric opposite_. The Platonic ideal of discomfort. The grinning nightmare image that would greet Saihara if he looked up “discomfort” in an encyclopedia.

“Sorry,” Saihara said as an afterthought, marveling at him.

“Sorry isn’t good enough. Try again or I’ll never forgive you,” he hissed. “Never. Ever!” Saihara blanched.

“N-no, it’s your turn.”

“Okay!” he chirped, suddenly wide-eyed and smiling again. “I’ll just have to show you how it’s done, huh? Y’know, in the criminal underworld, I’m famed for my legendary romanticism and sexual prowess. In the Nefarious Underworld Organization Monthly Newsletter, or NUOMN-” he hacked up the hideous acronym in one thick chunk, like a hairball- “I’m definitely at the tippy-tip- _top_ of the sexual rankings.”

“They also rank that, huh?” Saihara asked, then reeled in disbelief. “Wait, you _remembered_ that joke!?”

“But maybe Saihara-chan will be the one to make an honest man of me after all!” He beamed, hands folded behind his head. “Nishishi, that’s definitely a lie though.”

“Which part? The newsletter, or...”

“Who cares?” Oma unfolded his arms and reached up to touch his face, angling him carefully and staring at him as though figuring out the best plan of attack. His expression took on a worrying seriousness.

“Um…” One of Oma’s hands moved, pressing gently against Saihara’s chest, sliding tenderly to his side.

“Gotcha!” he shouted as he shoved Saihara sideways.

“ _Iyaaa!_ ” Saihara shrieked as he fell to the bed, then flushed pink at the shrill, dramatic sound of it. He clapped both hands over his face and let out a hollow groan. His legs dangled sadly off the edge.

“Don’t worry,” Oma reassured him. “I’m not a monster, y’know?” Reluctantly, Saihara allowed his hands to be pulled away from his eyes, revealing an uncharacteristically tender Oma looming over him. He pressed Saihara’s wrists into the bed on either side of his head and leaned down toward him, climbing up on the bed to straddle his waist. Saihara caught his breath, mesmerized, gaze fixed on the soft curve of his smile. “I can let things go, too. Despite being the supreme leader of evil, I’m not _entirely_ without mercy or human kindness.”

“Ah…”

“For example, I’m not mean enough to mock you for… _iyaaaaaa!_ ” Oma wailed abruptly, then directed a terrifying grin directly down into Saihara’s horrified face. “Nishishi! _Nishishishi!_ ” Cast in shadow, his eyes were crescents of pure malice. Saihara shuddered, turning his head to hide despite his pinned arms. “Do you always make noises that weird in these situations? Wellllll, not that you’d know either!”

“Nishishi,” Saihara countered weakly.

“Okay,” Oma conceded, “so that’s incredibly rude, but you got me. Ouch!” Saihara found himself trailing off into a genuine snicker, lightheaded with proximity and the remnants of his previous terror, then stopped. Oma was on top of him, close and warm and so real, and he wanted to try kissing him again. He wanted it in a way that had made him nervous five minutes ago. Somehow, after the teasing, Saihara felt comfortable.

Was that what Oma had intended all along?

“Iyaa!” Oma informed him, then kissed the tip of his nose and grinned.

Or maybe he really was a jerk, Saihara thought, but then he was being kissed properly and stopped caring. Oma’s mouth was soft and insistent, brushing against his with increasing warmth, his breath quiet but audible each time he pulled away. The quiet sound of his lips parting left Saihara dizzy and barely able to reciprocate as Oma licked playfully into his mouth, gently squeezed his wrists, slid his hands up to link his fingers with Saihara’s.

“How’s that?” he asked as he withdrew, voice pitched low and thick with insufferable smugness. “Anything like what you imagined?” Saihara thought about the dark room, Oma facing away and inviting his touch, encouraging him. “What sorts of things did you see?”

“Can I touch you?” he asked. Oma sat up, releasing his hands, and looked down at him with obvious curiosity.

“Eh? Yeah, that’s kind of the point.” Saihara reached out, smoothed the fabric of his clothes down one side to cup a hand over one narrow hip while carefully not looking up at his face. For a feverish moment he thought about sliding Oma backward just a bit, rutting up against him on the edge of the bed despite the strain it would be on his own tired back and legs, but instead he slipped his fingers under the hem of Oma’s uniform and brushed one open palm up his side. Soft, pale skin, like he had imagined, but with surprisingly wiry muscle beneath. Solid. He pushed the ragged hem up enough to admire his slim frame and the shallow curves of his hips, running his fingers feather-light over his abdomen and up toward his chest. He chanced a look down.

“You’re getting hard.” He instantly regretted saying anything, but when he shot an anxious glance up to Oma’s face he just looked _interested_ , as though Saihara hadn’t said anything stupidly obvious at all. It was enough to make him wonder what Oma was thinking about, though there was no use asking.

“Let’s get into bed properly,” Oma suggested. “We can work with this, but…” He gestured behind him, where Saihara’s legs sprawled uncomfortably off the end of the bed.

“Yeah, that would be better.” Oma dismounted to the side, kicking his shoes off. Saihara sat up and ran a shaking hand through his hair, then slid back along the mattress until he could put his head on the pillow properly.

“Well, what kind of thing did you see?” Oma lay down extravagantly on his side, propping his head up on one hand, smoothing the loose fabric of his uniform over the slim curve of one hip. “ _Thiiis_?” he asked, then offered a ridiculous wink. “You know, my body is made up of seventy percent lies, Saihara-chan. If you think about it, that means I’m made of infinite possibilities!” His voice dipped down, soft and low. “I could be anything you dreamed of.”

“Um…” Saihara cleared his throat, wondering if his steadily creeping blush had reached his chest yet. As over-the-top as Oma’s display was, Saihara found himself responsive to an embarrassing degree. “I, uh. I…” Oma unwound his scarf and loosened the metal clasps of his outfit, evidently basking in Saihara’s rapt, unwavering attention.

“Maybe I hate the Illusion Rod because of my professional pride as a liar,” he went on easily, ignoring Saihara’s stammering. “Since I know that _I_ could be so much _better_. Better at showing you something you want without having to go into your brain to do it. But then,” he said, smiling wickedly as his fingers worked on the buttons, “aren’t I already there?” He slid his uniform off one shoulder to expose the milky paleness of his skin and the metal loops hanging from his belt. Saihara, overwhelmed, stared at him. Oma was physically small but lean, his delicate build limned with hints of muscle. “C’mon, what was it you saw? So kinky you’re afraid to tell me about it? You can touch me, y’know.”

The phrase struck Saihara as though Oma had paraphrased it from his memory, crumpling his defenses. “Th...that’s what it showed me,” he confessed in one quick breath, closing his eyes. “Touching you, that’s all. S-sucking you off. Just...” He waited for Oma to laugh at the tameness of it. “Making you feel good.”

Saihara could hear the quiet sound of Oma breathing next to him, the buzz of the enormous light in the ceiling, the infernal rustle of the Monokuma collection. For a long moment Saihara entertained the image of Oma showering craft glitter over his face personally, jamming a paper crown on his head, and declaring him King of Boringville. Nothing happened. He reluctantly opened his eyes and found Oma in the same place, his expression luminous with fascination.

“What, you’re not going to say I’m boring?”

Oma shook his head. “You could have done anything,” he said, but to Saihara’s confusion there was no mockery in his voice. He looked more startled than amused as he sat up and shrugged off his uniform top, replaced his surprise with the teasing smile from earlier.

“Like...like what? What did you expect?” Saihara asked, genuinely puzzled by the reaction until it occurred to him that Oma was the only one losing clothes. He hastily sat up and began shedding his dress shirt to make up for it.

“Like I said, anything. You could have made me beg you to fuck me!” Oma said in a tone of utter blitheness, watching him fumble with the buttons. “Or gagged me to shut me up, I’m sure you wouldn’t be the only one in this place to like _that_ idea. Tied me up and roughed up my body.”

Saihara flinched as he shrugged off his shirt. “You came here _expecting_ that!?”

Oma shrugged his narrow shoulders. Saihara stared at the shallow ivory arcs of his clavicles and thought about how they would feel under his lips and fingers, coasting down to the flat planes of Oma’s chest. Would he be sensitive there? “Maaaybe. Or maybe not! Maybe I’d be interested, or maybe I’m lying about finding your thoughts interesting just to make you feel better. What do you think?”

“I don’t think you’re that…” _Nice_ , his mind supplied, but that wasn’t it, not quite. “I don’t think you’re doing that.”

“Nishishi...you were totally about to call me a dick, right?”

“Um…”

“You’re right, I am,” he said. “I don’t mind that kind of honesty.” He slipped his belt free and dropped it carelessly over the edge. “Hey, Saihara-chan. Because it’s you, you can touch me anywhere you want. I want you to.” He flicked the button of his pants open and pulled down the zipper, canting his hips up to slide everything down and unceremoniously kick it off the end of the bed.

“Oh…” He stared openly as Oma’s cock sprang free, lying half-hard against his thighs.

“Because I like you,” he said, reaching down and giving it a few leisurely strokes to full hardness, pressing it against his flat belly as though to show it off, reclining his body flat across the bed to display himself. “That’s not a lie, y’know. I like Saihara-chan sooo much, I’ll do something really rare, just for you. I’ll tell you one absolutely true thing.” Overwhelmed by the show, Saihara looked at the porcelain flesh of his thighs, the dense, deep-violet nest of hair at the base of his cock. Oma smiled, eyes half-lidded and glossy, and trailed the tip of one finger up his own length. “No one’s _ever_ seen me like this before. Only you.”

Saihara felt a physical heat engulf his face like a hot wind, spreading down through his body. He wondered if his sudden trembling was visible as he reached out and stroked the line of one clavicle, tracing the line of it down to the center of Oma’s chest and bringing the pads of his fingers across to a nipple. “R-really?” He rubbed and circled until it hardened to a small peak. Oma squirmed and sighed restlessly, breathed out a soft noise when Saihara leaned down to take it into his mouth.

“Aah - do you think I’d lie about that?” He caught his breath as Saihara rubbed at the other one, pausing to climb atop him before going back to it, licking and kissing at it before sucking a little harder. “Just to get you excited?” It could be a lie, like anything else Oma said. Even his gentle voice could be artifice, but that did nothing to slow down the way Saihara’s pulse throbbed in his dick every time he let out a low, breathy sound. He easily encompassed Oma’s entire body beneath himself, between his arms, drank in the quivering sound of Oma’s breath.

“So you really are sensitive here,” he murmured, moving to the other one and sucking a little roughly, lowering his body down to feel hardness press against his belly. “Can you lie about something like this?” He slid a hand down between them, curling his fingers tight around Oma's cock.

“Nnh…” Oma shifted, curled his fingers in the sheets. “Maybe. Is that a challenge?”

Saihara smiled and stroked him too gently, thumbed tenderly under the head of his dick to watch his expression go hazy and abstracted, swiped a little slickness from the tip and gave him a few slow strokes. “It’s not.” He slid down further, planting a kiss beneath the dip of his navel, and lifted his cock upright to take the tip into his mouth.

Oma exhaled audibly, a shivering noise, and went quiet. It had been easy in the illusion in the way that dreams made everything simple, but even having the real thing to contend with Saihara was still able to keep his teeth out of the way and press his tongue hard against the length of it as he sucked up and down in a steady motion that was probably too slow, hand wrapped firm around the base as he pressed it against his palate.

He had expected Oma to be loud and theatrical, but the stifled noises he did make were somehow better - a bitten-off groan, a gasp when Saihara sped up, the slightly raspy sound of his breath coming faster. Saihara’s own dick almost ached, but with one hand bracing his own weight and the other holding Oma there was nothing to do but rut down against one of Oma’s shins. The blunt tip of the cock pressed into his mouth, deeper, and in an ambitious motion he let it hit the back of his hard palate-

“Ugh,” he gasped, pulling off and heaving a little. Oma stared at the ceiling. “Sorry, sorry.” Having the chance, he surveyed Oma and found him flushed pink, his forehead dewy with perspiration. His chest rose and fell with quick, frantic gasps.

“You felt so good, I almost...” he said in a breathless, quiet voice.

Saihara coughed in astonishment and wiped at his mouth, more to hide his face than to clean anything up. “I-I’m okay, I’ll keep-”

“No, no. Don’t. Isn’t there something in your pocket?” Saihara, confused, paused to slip a hand into his pocket. He extracted a small bottle of lubricant and looked at Oma in shock.

“How did you _do_ that?”

“Do what?” Oma asked, a smile creeping unsteadily back to his face. “You’re the one who had it, I just felt something hard pressing against my leg before. You were expecting a lot out of me, huh? Or maybe you just wanted to touch dicks for a while? Wow, Saihara-chan’s sooo dirty. What a pervert...”

“ _Me_!?” Saihara was rendered almost speechless by the injustice, particularly from someone still recovering from his mouth on their dick. “But, but you-!”

“It’s all true, isn’t it? You have it, and there’s definitely something hard down there.” Oma raised one knee and rubbed the unyielding bone of his shin against Saihara through his pants, slow and deliberate, lips drawing back in a wicked smile.

“How convenient.” Saihara pursed his lips and fought back the pounding of his heart long enough to glare a little. There was no telling how long Oma would hold out if the issue were pressed. He sighed in resignation and unbuttoned his own pants, sliding them off with difficulty and kicking them from the bed despite his awkward position. “If I had any other unexpected surprises in my pockets, they’re gone now.”

Oma shrugged, openly peering into the space between his body and Saihara’s. “I’m not a gross pervert like Saihara-chan, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Y-you’re ogling me right now!” He vividly imagined what it would be like to slide into Oma and shuddered at the idea, squeezing the bottle nervously. He didn’t have to imagine not knowing what he was doing. “Um...let’s just touch each other for now.”

“Sounds good.” Saihara flipped the cap of the bottle open and dripped slickness on his fingers, reaching down to stroke Oma harder, quicker, leaving him slippery and glossy. “Mmh, trying to appease me?”

“Not really,” Saihara murmured. “Is that possible?” He twitched as his fingers finally made contact with his own dick, spreading slickness along the length.

“Let’s find out.” Oma sighed and wriggled as Saihara slid forward, lining up with him and wrapping an experimental hand around them both. “But to be honest, I’m not gonna last long after that.”

“I...definitely won’t either.” He thrust against Oma and let out a shallow gasp at the slickness, how hard and surprisingly satisfying Oma’s cock felt against his, the way that finally touching himself sent a bolt of lightning up his spine and left him dizzy with relief. Oma’s arms curled upward, hands grasping Saihara’s shoulders almost painfully, and with a quick writhing motion he thrust into the encircling hand again and again to rub himself hard and mercilessly against Saihara.

“It’s good,” Oma breathed. Saihara gritted his teeth and thrust back as well as he could with Oma’s weight on him, the slick friction building a sweet, coiling heat embarrassingly fast in his belly. “You...” He trailed off for a moment, panting harshly with effort. “You feel so good,” he finished, his breath so loud that each exhale was vocalized.

Saihara opened his mouth to say something, anything in reply, but all that escaped him was an embarrassing whimper. He gritted his teeth again and worked harder, lowering his head and chasing the feeling, closing his hand a little tighter and listening to Oma cry out underneath him. “Oma-kun,” he gasped, “I’m close, are you almost-”

“Yeah.” His voice sounded raw, scraped by the breaths forcing noise from him. “Just lemme...” He sped up, releasing Saihara’s shoulders to clutch his hands tightly in the sheets for leverage. “Yeah, there-!” He spasmed and shuddered, everything going impossibly slicker as Saihara continued to thrust against him. “Ahh, _ah,_ enough.”

“Oh,” Saihara said, a little overwhelmed, and let go of Oma to give himself a last few pulls before coming messily across Oma’s pale abdomen, twitchy and shaky and a little embarrassed to feel Oma softly holding his sides as though to stabilize him.

Oma looked thoroughly unraveled, once Saihara got himself together enough to notice it - his belly was a streaky mess that immediately committed itself to Saihara’s memory for later - but the laxity of his muscles and his expression screamed satiety. “Wasn’t bad,” he said languidly. “Of course I’ve had better.” Saihara shook his head and smiled, rolling to the side with a groan. “Or maybe I haven’t, who knows?”

“Aren’t you too tired for that routine right now?”

“Too tired to lie? That’s impossible. Lying is my source of energy, Saihara-chan.” Despite his words, Oma stretched and yawned. “I’m taking the first shower.” Saihara nodded and wiped sweat from his face with the sheet as Oma vanished into the bathroom. Before he heard water hit the tile, he was asleep.

He woke up well after the morning announcement, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The pillow beside him was empty, not just of the Illusion Rod but of any sign that Oma had ever been there. “Oma-kun,” he said, remembering, and rolled out of bed on unsteady legs. The ache of the prior day’s exertion flooded his muscles and he groaned, stumbling to the table on jellylike legs. “Ouch…”

The envelope lay beside the box, both still seemingly untouched. Nothing seemed to be missing anywhere, once it occurred to him to look around - some of the Monokumas had been scattered to different areas of the shelf as though by curious hands, and one of the flying ones replaced upside down where it had been, but all were present. Even the door was locked, probably by the deft application of lockpicks. The upside-down Monokuma twitched like a dying fish. Saihara ignored it and picked up the envelope to slide it open, pulling out a thick packet from inside. He furrowed his brow at the revelation that it was yet another envelope, creased and rumpled from having been forced into an envelope. Inside that envelope was a single folded paper.

* * *

_**These Still Aren’t Instructions** _

__

_Will you ever stop falling for these things, Saihara-chan!? You had two whole envelopes to think over the possibility that it was a trick! You’re always five steps behind me._

_This item only shows happy illusions, based on people and places you know to exist right now. You won’t be able to see your dead friends, or get new information, or see anything about the outside world. It isn’t a motive to hurt anyone. It isn’t a Flashback Light. It’s safe to give to someone. To be sure, you have to use it yourself. To use it, spin it in front of your face._

_Those were the answers to all the questions I asked. You weren’t the first one to use it, unless that’s also a lie..._

_P.S. If you’re always five steps behind me, that means you’re fast enough to keep up. Feel free to join my organization anytime._

* * *

Saihara refolded the paper with a rueful smile and slipped it back into the second envelope, then placed the papers atop the Illusion Rod laying snugly in its box. He wondered what sorts of happy illusions Oma had expected him to have, and then what fantasies he had suspected of Saihara once he figured out what was happening. Saihara considered the sorts of things Oma might have prepared himself for when he came to knock on the door.

He wondered what the Illusion Rod showed Oma, if he really had used it first. With a long last look, Saihara fitted the lid back on the box and made his way to the bathroom.

“I wonder what else he would like,” he mused as he closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, Yumeno dropped her spoon on the ground and was too lazy to get another. "I'll just use yours," she said, and so all of Chabashira's dreams came true. Did she drop it purposely? Since this story is from Saihara's perspective, we can never know.


End file.
